66 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



also were shot after the frost. I got five dozen in the week 

 following the frost, in quite mild weather. I forget whether 

 many geese were got before the frost. 



Capt. Feilden says (in his Appendix to Capt. N ares' book) that 

 the Brent Geese gather into flocks of old and young while the 

 latter are small. The old ones lose their quills early in July, 

 and the new quills are full grown in a month, so old and 

 young can fly about the same time, and from what we observe 

 here I think they migrate together. Early in the autumn they 

 come ; some in flocks of 100 or more, some in quite small lots ; 

 the latter may probably often be families which have been iso- 

 lated in the breeding places. Seven is a very common number, 

 and is, according to Feilden, the usual number of a family, 

 young and old. We do not often have a chance of finding out 

 how many old and young are in these small lots, but they never 

 seem to be all young. If several are shot, at least one is almost 

 always an old one. In one case a man killed six young at a shot 

 out of nine when they first came ; he said that one of the old 

 ones, after flying away, came back and flew round the others, 

 apparently trying to get them away. 



The companies of Brent Geese, as they arrive, often I think 

 associate together all the winter, especially if there is no frost. 

 They are mostly scattered over the sea, picking up the drifting 

 weed. When a good width of mud has ebbed dry, the geese 

 collect on it — a few at first ; then more keep coming to them in 

 lots of from three or four to a hundred or more, until perhaps 

 there are some thousands in one flock. When they have done 

 feeding, the whole lot will fly up and scatter like a fan, the 

 different parties keeping together in small lots or strings which 

 separate themselves, sometimes widely, over the sea. Severe 

 frost and easterly wind, however, soon break up the companies 

 when there are many young ones. A great mass will be ashore 

 upon the mud ; when the tide is flowing towards them, the wilder 

 birds will give warning to go, set all the heads up, and start the 

 lot by flying up ; a few, perhaps some hundreds, will go off to 

 sea, the rest will wheel round and settle again : as an old gunner 

 used to say, " So much the better; some of the wild ones are 

 sifting off." This is sometimes repeated several times till — on 

 the tide bringing the punters within shot — most of the re- 

 maining geese are found to be young ones, which, being more 



